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From David’s Psalms to Watts’s Hymns: the Development of Hymnody among Dissenters following the Toleration Act
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The introduction of hymns and hymn-singing has been described as one of the greatest contributions made by dissent to English worship. Yet, with the exception of specialist studies by hymnologists, church historians have largely ignored eighteenth-century hymns and hymn-singing, though it is clear they represented a powerful and popular source of contemporary religious expression. Hymns, that is compositions which depart too far from Scripture to be called paraphrases, have been one of the most effective mediums of religious thought and feeling, second only to the Bible in terms of their influence. The only recent academic studies have been in English Literature, where hymns have been examined as literary texts for their poetic value. As a consequence neither the historical context of the development of the hymn in the decades following the 1689 Toleration Act, nor the liturgical significance of their introduction to public worship, has been addressed.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 35: Continuity and Change in Christian Worship , 1999 , pp. 227 - 239
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999
References
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3 Davies, Worship, 3, p. 34.
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5 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. misc. e. 257, Antiquarian notes and drafts of letters of William Bickerstaffc (1728-89), fol. 154V: ‘The Dissenting meeting house, was the Barn in Bonners or Mill Lane ye Horspool street, where the clarke began to sing chevy chase.’ Bickerstaffc presumably had the account from his mother who was a member of the Great Meeting congregation during the ministry (c. 1709-29) of Thomas Gee. See J. Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, 4 vols in 8 pts (London, 1795–1811), 1 pt 2, p. 315 n.3.
6 Watts, Dissenters, 1, p. 308; Davics, Worship, 2, p. 274.
7 See D. L. Wykes, ‘“The Settling of Meetings and the Preaching of the Gospel”: the development of the dissenting interest after toleration’, JURCHS, 5 (1993), pp. 127-45.
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15 The Scottish Psalter was the Edinburgh edition of the English metrical psalter, which excluded the Canticles associated with the Common Book of Prayer and included the Fonn of Prayers and Catechism from Calvin’s Order of Worship; See Illing, ‘English metrical Psalter’, pp. 517-19. For Barton, see E. Welch, ‘William Barton, hymnwriter’, Guildhall Miscellany, 3 (1971), pp. 235-41.
16 London, Dr Williams’s Library, MS 90.4.5, Sarah Savage to Matthew Henry, 12 Feb. 1686/7. Barton’s Psalms were said to have been used at the Above Bar meeting in Southampton, when Isaac Watts was a boy: L. F. Benson, The English Hymn (New York, 1915), p. 113; Maclean and Brett-James, ‘London in 1689-90’, p. 145.
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30 Rothwell, Northamptonshire: Rothwell United Reformed Church, First Church book of Rothwell Independent Church, 1655-1708, s.v. 3 Jul. 1699.
31 Portsmouth Record Office, CHU 82/9/1, High Street Presbyterian Meeting, Portsmouth, Ledger of miscellaneous church receipts, 7 Nov. 1697-1 Aug. 1736, under 21 Feb. 1709/10.
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